RECYCLING

While many of our retailers have their own internal recycling practices, some of them also offer various recycling initiatives in which customers can participate. Here are a few examples of different ways you can contribute to recycling programs:

COLES

Some recycling initiatives Coles has taken include:

Coles bottled water bottles are made from recycled plastic, saving 1.9 million kgs of plastic a year

Plantic eco-plastic for packaging Coles Brand fresh beef, pork and lamb mince combines the use of renewable corn and recyclable plastic material to create a meat pack that is suitable to go in your recycling bin at home.

Programs to recycle or divert food, cardboard and plastic resulted in converting more than 3000 tonnes of organic material to energy, and donating more than 7.8 million kilograms of food via its partnership with SecondBite and Foodbank.

Customers are encouraged to use reusable bags and a number of different reusable bags are available for purchase at Coles.

WOOLWORTHS

Woolworths is working towards positively influencing its retail supply chain to become more sustainable and reduce its carbon footprint.

Woolworths has several organic produce suppliers who have recently adopted recycled packaged and it has completed the total elimination of polystyrene trays from its produce organics supply network, converting to compostable trays or recyclable plastic. Woolworths continues to work with all of its suppliers to actively pursue packaging alternatives that reduce the amount of packaging or increasing its recyclability where possible.

Moving towards a target of zero food waste to landfill, many diversion programs have been implemented, including food donation to farmers and food rescue charities like OzHarvest, FoodBank and SecondBite, as well as commercial food recycling and the new end-to-end stock-loss initiative ‘Fresher Faster’.

COUNTRY ROAD

Country Road has partnered with the Australian Red Cross on Fashion Trade - a unique clothing exchange program that rewards customers with a $10 discount voucher for donating pre-owned Country Road clothing to the Red Cross and saving clothing from going to landfill.

Through Country Road’s Fashion Trade program, more than 44,000 items of clothing and accessories were donated by customers and Country Road, contributing in excess of $2.1 million (in retail value) to the Red Cross in Australia and New Zealand.